The last man to step on the Moon and write about it in 1972: Eugene Cernan

Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17 -also manned by Harrison Schmitt and Ronald Evans-, was the last human being to set foot on the Moon and the first to write letters on its surface. Of the 82 years of his existence, 566 hours were spent in space and 73 of these in the terrestrial satellite of 3,476 kilometers in diameter. Upon arriving on lunar terrain, he exclaimed: “My God, this is incredible!”

Cernan, an engineer and captain in the US Navy, who traveled to space three times, had already been part of the Apollo 10 mission, which flew to the Moon and proved that a moon landing was possible. He left all the information expedited for the apollo 11 he will get the glory.

There were 12 men who stepped on the lunar surface, but Neil Armstrong -the first- and he, the last, will be remembered for those singularities. Cernan declared in 1997 that (humans) were able to reach Mars and also said: “looking back I remember this last trip to the Moon with a bit of nostalgia.”

Leaving the Moon, while climbing the steps of the Lunar Module “Challenger”, Cernan was encouraged to deliver a short speech, whose final sentences said: “This American challenge of today has forged the destiny of the man of tomorrow.” And of course he had earned the right to “his own speech”: he had been the third man to walk in space and one of three people to travel twice to the Moon.

Referring to that historic moment, Trade titled: “A 1,500-meter mountain visited by astronauts on their last lunar walk.” 384 thousand kilometers from our planet, after a final exploration, astronauts Cernan and Schmitt boarded the Challenger exploration module. It was the early hours of that December 14.

Once asked what he remembered most about his walks through the Moonexpressed: “First, the extraordinary beauty and majesty of the Earth as seen from the Moon. It cannot be described in words, but it convinced me that all this cannot be an accident, there must be something bigger than us, a Creator of the Universe, I don’t care what we call it”.

Cernan, who began his career at the POT in 1963, making his first trip as part of the Gemini 9 mission, during his stay on the Moon he wanted to perpetuate his love for his daughter by writing the initials TDC –Teresa Dawn Cernan– on the surface of the satellite. These letters probably remain for centuries in the so-called Taurus Littrow Valley.

The number 17 was linked to his life until the end. It was the number of the Apollo mission that led him to the Moon and it was the number of the year in which he left Earth: 2017, on January 16. And that another day could have been a Monday (day of the Moon in Latin). Cernan left with the medal of having been the last man to have set foot on our planet’s natural satellite…for the moment.

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